


Black coffee and lemon cakes

by diesis



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Colleagues - Freeform, Cops, Kickboxing, One Shot, POV Jaime Lannister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28001397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diesis/pseuds/diesis
Summary: “She’s not my girlfriend.” Jaime repeats. “Not interested.”
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 18
Kudos: 62
Collections: JB Festive Festival Exchange 2020





	Black coffee and lemon cakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mizwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizwrites/gifts).



Lemon is angry, Jaime can tell it by the way she goes at Sandor: too fast, too unfocused, her footsteps give away the direction of her next fist. Like a fury, and fury is often a good way to lose a match. Anyway, no one would care if she either wins or loses this one, it’s just a training bout in Clegane’s gym.  
“I need to punch someone.” She said, and this seemed the better solution. He can’t blame her. Punching Captain Tarly would’ve been much more satisfying, but obviously she couldn’t do that.  
So they walked in silence the two blocks from the police station to the gym, and Brienne was in such a sour mood that Jaime thought she totally earned her nickname.  
  
On the day Tarly told him the name of the new agent who’d just gotten assigned as his patrol partner, for a moment Jaime thought to call her “ _Tart_ ”, eliding the last word of her surname. He nixed the thought immediately, though: he was one for teasing, not downright insults, moreover to a woman he hadn’t even met, back then.  
After his issue with Chief Targaryen, Tarly had decided to put him back on patrol indefinitely, and Jaime had decided to make the life of his coworkers as miserable as his own.  
The result was that he changed partner almost twice a year. Said partner would apply to become a detective, or get a promotion, or simply beg to change their shift.  
Jaime looked at Brienne Tarth’s file while he sipped his black coffee in the break room, wondering how long would this young recruit last. Her name would remain Tarth, he’d settled in the end, because his run-ins with Tarly were not her fault.  
Yet the free association remained in Jaime’s mind. Their first shift together was hell - in truth, their first _half a year_ together was hell - and the girl proved to be, actually, as tart as a slice of lemon stuck in his mouth.  
She’s become “ _Lemon_ ” that first day, and still bursts out “my name is Brienne” any time he calls her that. Which is quite often, because Jaime loves the way she scowls when she corrects him. Not that he’ll ever tell her there’s something he loves about her, though.  
  
Sandor scores a couple of points with a kick at Brienne’s shoulder, and Jaime wonders if it will leave a bruise on her well toned arm.  
They do two minutes rounds - men timing - and she lost the first one, won the second one and is now struggling through the third one.  
The headgear plasters down her hair, and Jaime knows she’ll ruffle it with both hands, later, and then she’ll comb it in a practical low ponytail. Sweat drips on the back of her neck and down her spine, the drops disappear behind the hem of her sports bra, while she deals a jab on Sandor’s side, then jumps back and tries a circle kick. The ring seems too small for her legs, and Sandor barely manages to block it.  
Jaime can’t help recalling the raid at Hoat’s drug den, it’s been almost one month ago.  
Her opponent did not block the kick, back then, and Jaime remembers the man’s body flying through the room like a rag doll. It’s one of the last things he remembers of that night, before passing out.  
  
The boxing hall of the gym is deserted. Sandor’s regulars are mostly cops, like Brienne and Jaime, but it’s a work day morning, and their colleagues will come either at lunch break or in the late afternoon, after the day shift.  
In the other room, Missandei is ending the aerobics class with her bunch of bored housewives and college students. The radio echoes over Sandor’s muttered curses and Brienne’s grunts.  
Now the dance theme is replaced by a sugary ballad, that Missandei uses for the warm-down, and suddenly Brienne turns her head towards the speaker.  
She gets knocked down by Sandor’s overhand instantly. Jaime jumps on the bench.  
Brienne stares at the ceiling, stunned. From where he sits, Jaime can’t see her eyes, but he knows exactly what they look like, right now: he’d beaten her soundly on that same ring, before the raid. She’d beaten him more often, but it’s just because she’s been playing kickboxing since her teens, and Jaime only started after he met her.  
He knows the shade of blue of those eyes when she stares up at him, baffled, defeated but not yielding - she’s _never_ yielding, that’s another thing he loves about her. That’s the reason why he’s still breathing, possibly.  
  
Another thing he remembers - but the memory is hazy and blurry, like a very bad hangover - is her voice whispering in his ear, through the deafening sound of the ambulance siren, her hand on his sweaty brow, gentle.  
“Don’t you dare to die on me, Lannister.” She said, her voice was breaking.  
Some days later, in the hospital, his brother told him that she pestered the doctors so much, that in the end they allowed her to travel on the ambulance with him.  
“She’s as stubborn as a remarkably stubborn mule.” Tyrion said, and Jaime laughed for the first time since he woke after the surgery.  
  
Brienne lies flat and shuts her eyes, doesn’t reach out to Sandor’s extended hand. The cloying song is still playing. She stands, eventually, spits the mouthguard in a corner, jumps from the ring and rushes away. She enters the dressing room without sparing a glance either to Jaime or to Sandor.  
“Lemon!” Jaime shouts behind her, standing from his seat.  
“Tsk!” Sandor splutters, while he removes his gloves. “What the hell is wrong with your girlfriend today, Lannister?” The big man asks.  
Jaime knits his brows, tries to perform the don’t-mess-with-me look that his father uses so often.  
“She’s not my girlfriend.” He replies bluntly. She’s not even his partner anymore - even though he hopes they’ll be able to work together again, if he recovers after the physical therapy.  
Jaime can’t tell why Sandor has had such a preposterous thought, but the gym’s owner immediately dispels his doubt.  
“Come on, ever since you brought her here for the first time you’ve kept looking at her like she could smash you and you would love it.”  
The man should definitely check his sight - the fire that marred his face when he was younger must have ruined his retina too. Jaime doesn’t even really _like_ her.  
“You don’t even really like kickboxing.” Sandor insists, and it feels almost like he’s parroting Jaime’s thoughts. This is true, anyway: before Brienne, he just came at Clegane’s for circuit training.  
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Jaime repeats. “Not interested.” He adds, wondering how could he possibly be interested in her.  
She’s tall and ugly - except for her eyes, her eyes are small ponds of sky - and mostly dour, and insufferably righteous, she reminds him too much of his own early years in the police, when he deluded himself that everything, everyone could be either good or bad. In Brienne’s value system he’s probably been on the bad side even before they met, because after Aerys his reputation precedes him everywhere.  
Yet she _listened_ to him when he told her what really happened with the former Chief, she listened like anyone else - not even Cersei - ever did.  
She’s listened to his endless chatting during their shifts, too, answering in monosyllables or rolling her eyes, or not answering at all.  
  
It’s taken him months to make her laugh at one of his jokes. She has a horsey, contagious laughter. And a heartbreaking way of sobbing when she cries and tries to hold it back - Jaime has seen her crying only once, on the day they found that little boy’s dead body.  
Tyrion said she was crying also in the hospital corridor, while he was in the surgery room.  
And from the noises that come from the dressing room, she’s crying now, too.  
Jaime leaves Sandor on the ring and heads to the door.  
  
“Hey Lannister!” Sandor yells. “You didn’t answer: what’s going on with the girl?”  
It shouldn’t be his goddamned business, and Jaime considers telling him just so, but eventually he decides to be polite.  
“Tarly suspended her until the investigation is over.”  
“Which investigation?” Sandor frowns.  
Jaime raises his right bandaged hand in answer.  
“Gods be damned! What an asshole! He should have given her a promotion!”  
Sandor is right. Any male agent of the precinct - except maybe Jaime himself - would have received a medal for arresting Hoat, getting rid of Zollo and dismantling the Brave Companions single-handedly, saving their partner’s life in the process.  
Brienne has been put on leave for two weeks, instead, even if the IAB already confirmed that the investigation is a mere formality.  
Sandor shakes his head, and Jaime doesn’t wait for his next remark to push the door of the women’s dressing room.  
  
Brienne is standing by the lockers, her forehead an her forearms pressed on the metal, her protective gear neatly placed on a bench. Her muscled back is so tense that it looks like she’s supporting the whole room, and the walls could crumble if she moved.  
“Lemon.” Jaime says, quietly.  
“Leave me be, Jaime.” It’s “ _Jaime_ ”, not “ _Lannister_ ” anymore, after he came back from the hospital. Jaime quite likes it.  
“Never.” He retorts, and smiles.  
Brienne breathes, even if he can’t see her face he knows she’s smiling, too, now. Jaime walks around the bench, until he’s standing close to her.  
“You’re impossible.” She says when she finally raises her head and looks at him. She’s smiling and she’s still crying, she moved from the locker and the building didn’t collapse.  
“I’m sorry.” She says, then, looking at her bare feet. Her thighs look even longer than usual in the boxer shorts. “I acted like a stupid. I should go and apologize to Sandor.”  
Jaime grabs her elbow and stops her. “I already told him about Tarly.”  
“I’m sorry. It’s just... that, and then this song.” She nods to the small speaker in a corner of the dressing room.  
Jaime looks at her questioningly.  
“They played it at my junior prom. It’s utterly stupid, I know.” She explains, sniffles and then lowers her head.  
Jaime remembers that, when the song first aired, he was in the last year of the police academy. He recalls it, because Cersei decided it was _their_ song, for a couple of months, until the next hit single replaced it, but now it doesn’t remind him of his ex, only of how young Brienne actually is. So young that he would like to be able to protect her, somehow, but the stitches are still burning under the bandage on his right hand, and the tendons beneath his scarred skin are irreparably damaged, and she’s the one who killed a man to defend him, she’s the one who’s always covered him during this last awful year.  
He doesn’t want to think about how useless he feels, right now, almost as useless as Brienne’s sensible black bra on her too small breasts.  
  
“Bad memories?” He asks. She just nods. Jaime tilts up her chin with his left, then wipes away a tear. Her skin is soft under his thumb, with freckles spreading on her cheek like firework lights in the night sky.  
“Don’t let them bring you down, Lemon.” Jaime whispers.  
“My name is Brienne.” She answers, out of habit. “But... thank you.”  
He withdraws his hand. It’s the first time they touch with affection, and they both realize it. At least, Jaime guesses that she does, too, because she blushes and averts her gaze.  
  
The other door of the dressing room opens, and some women from the aerobics class come in.  
“Hey!!!” One of them shouts, looking at him like he were a perv - a perv she would gladly join in his kinks. Then she spots Brienne, and Jaime hates the look even more: it’s half pity, half scorn.  
He’s about to scream at her, but Brienne speaks first, calmly. “You’d better go now, Jaime.”  
“Ok. I wait for you outside, Lemon.”  
The woman’s eyes narrow in disappointment, as if his colleague won the lottery after stealing the ticket from a blind child, and Jaime is tempted to clasp Brienne in his arms and kiss her thoroughly, just to piss the lady off.  
  
He exits the room, instead, sits again on the bench by the ring, and looks at his hands.  
In these days, Jaime feels almost like he felt five years ago, after Aerys’ imprisonment. He doesn’t know what will be of his life, he can’t make plans, he just knows what he’ll do the next hour, the next day, and that’s all. He’s always been good at improvising, but this uncertainty is nor thrilling neither promising.  
It’s like the recurring dream he has so often, lately: he dreams that he’s trapped in a dark cave, his hands - when he dreams they’re both unscathed - touch the damp surface of the walls. He knows he should run because a ghost is chasing him, but he keeps on walking slowly. At one point he feels a touch on his shoulder, and he wakes up screaming.  
He usually gets up from the bed, sits in front of the tv, texts Brienne - she’s having nightmares too, so she is almost always awake. He types slowly with his left. They chat while he flips through channels looking for a wildlife documentary, and then Jaime falls asleep on his sofa until the morning sun filters through the curtains.  
  
The song has ended, replaced with some instrumental ambient music. The door of the dressing room creaks.  
Brienne comes out, and she’s not the girl who just cried remembering her prom: the stern young woman is back. Jaime knows they’re the same person.  
In the year they’ve spent together he’s learned to see her soft, good heart underneath the suit of armor of her big body and of her strict self-discipline - this is another thing he loves about her.  
  
She’s wearing her uniform. They stormed out from the police station in haste, her civvies are still there in the locker. Jaime always thought that it really suits her, the dark blue brings out her eyes, and she looks imposing.  
“I bet you scared to death all those chicks in there, dressed like that.” He comments, earning a truly scary glare. He laughs, she rolls her eyes, everything seems to be again as it used to be four weeks ago, even though anything won’t ever be the same anymore.  
“Come on, Lemon, let’s go to the station to retrieve your clothes, and then you can buy me a coffee.”  
“You’re the one whose family owns a property company and _I_ have to buy you a coffee?”  
“I’m the senior officer so, if I tell you that you buy me a coffee, you do buy me a coffee. Anyway, I can buy you a cake, if you don’t mind the sugar intake. A _Lemon_ one.”  
Brienne grumbles. “Oh, please, these jokes about lemon cakes aren’t even funny. And what’s worse, Sansa’s started doing them too, after she heard you.”  
“It’s not my fault if your flatmate has a better sense of humor than yours.” He’s telling a lie. Sansa doesn’t have a better sense of humor than hers.  
She throws at him her uniform cap in response. On instinct, Jaime tries to catch it with his right, and it falls miserably on the floor.  
He bends down and picks it up with his left. When he raises his head again, Brienne is biting her lower lip. She’s blushing, and her eyes are sad.  
Jaime would like to tell her that she must not feel responsible for what happened that night. He doesn’t know if she would do as he asks - she never does as he asks, anyway, since neither of them ever believed in the “ _senior officer_ ” bullshit.  
So he just gives her back the cap, instead. His hand lingers on hers - and his eyes on her plump lips - a bit more than it’s necessary.  
Jaime wonders if her mouth still tastes of the black coffee they drank together at breakfast, in the cafe in front of the police station, before her meeting with Tarly.  
“Let’s go eat those cakes, Lemon.” He says.  
Brienne puts on again the cap, walks towards the entrance without waiting for him, and Jaime thinks that he’s lucky he has her in his wretched life.  
  
He dreams of her, sometimes, and those are the nights when the darkness doesn’t seem unbearable.  
Not that he’ll ever tell her, though.

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, thanks to the amazing slipsthrufingers and nire who organized this exchange and to rayne who helped me betaing some parts <3  
> The prompts I received are: something Jaime-centric / Jaime POV, mutual and reluctant admiration to each other, age difference.  
> To mizwrites: I came up with this modern AU, I hope you won’t be disappointed!  
> 


End file.
